At the close of the first term of service of enlistment, Captain Shelley resigned as captain, returned to Alabama and raised another regiment, of which he became the colonel. This was the Thirtieth Regiment of Alabama Volunteers, which regiment was assigned to duty in the western army, where it won great distinction for its fighting qualities. In the memorable campaign of 1862, in Tennessee and Kentucky, Colonel Shelley's regiment shared throughout. Subsequently the regiment was transferred to Mississippi and attached to Tracey's brigade, which saw hard service at Port Gibson. The first hard fight on the field in which the Thirtieth Alabama Regiment shared was at Baker's Creek, or Champion Hills, where Colonel Shelley received special mention at the hands of General Stephen D. Lee, the hero of that battle. Later still, the regiment was at Vicksburg and shared in the result of that ill-fated city. In the series of conflicts in northern Georgia and in all the fighting between that region and Atlanta, and on to Jonesboro, the Thirtieth Alabama Regiment was conspicuous. At Jonesboro, Ga., Colonel Shelley was placed in command of a brigade, which position he held for a few weeks, when he was placed at the head of Cantey's brigade and given a commission as a brigadier. He was with Hood on the return march into Tennessee, and in the ill-starred battle of Franklin his brigade was a heavy sufferer, having lost six hundred and seventy men out of a total of eleven hundred whom he led into the fight. By an adroit movement at Franklin, General Shelley saved from capture the entire corps of General Stewart, for which skill and gallantry he received special mention at the hands of General Hood. It is a matter of record that but for the generalship shown by Shelley at Franklin, that battle would have been far more disastrous in its results. He came out of the fight with little more than four hundred men in his brigade, half of which number was captured at Nashville. After these convulsions in Tennessee, contemporaneous with the onward march of Sherman to the sea, thence into North Carolina, where General Joseph E. Johnston was restored to his command, now a fragment of its former self, General Shelley was assigned to duty there. All the twelve Alabama regiments belonging to the army were thrown together into one brigade in North Carolina, and placed under the command of General Shelley. The surrender of Johnston's army resulted in the return of General Shelley to Selma as a paroled soldier.